


Cart, Then Horse

by jenna_thorn



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There’s nothing shameful about a healthy display of sexuality,” Steve said with the confidence of someone who’d finally quit blushing at Vicky’s Secret ads. With a little help. And a lot of ribbing. And an off-the-record sit down with Hill that Clint would give blood to get a transcript of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cart, Then Horse

Hulk’s punch shattered concrete and ended the fight. Clint staggered and the buildings around him shivered dust. He probably had a couple of wheelbarrows full of the crap in his lungs at this point. Tony stepped through the fountain at the hydrant on the corner to wave Hulk away so that Hill and her team could wrestle the containment unit into place. He sneezed, the dust on his face scratching unpleasantly. Cap’s voice sounded vaguely tinny in his ear. “Check in: Iron Man, assessment of the Hulk.”

“Surface abrasions and he’s yawning, so we’re good. I’m external damage only. Mostly cosmetic, even, but if I spot high school girls running a car wash for donations, I’ll be late for dinner, dear.”

Clint keyed the mike. “Widow needs a band-aid.” She flashed a rude two fingers at him, but changed direction to head toward the on-site medic behind the yellow tape. She’d get him back later, but Clint was worried about what might be mixed in the urban crud they’d been rolling in for the last hour.

He heard the double click of the shift to private channel. “Is there someone fairly near where I landed?” Steve asked. Natasha paused and looked past Clint toward the edge of the building where Steve had been thrown. “I’m fine. I am. I’m just tangled. And need another pair of hands.”

Clint waved Natasha off. “Go get your boo-boo kissed, I’ve got him,” he said and jogged toward the bodega on the corner. Steve had played bait, engaging the rock creature long enough to let Hulk pound him into gravel, but he’d been thrown hard. Clint stepped over the tumbled bags of chips and, with a sigh, through the hole in the interior wall. “Where are you?”

“In the bathing suits? I think? There’s strings and I’m trying not to break them, since …”

“You do know the property damage lecture wasn’t actually aimed at you, right?”

Cap shot back quickly, “It’s still someone’s storefront and inventory, and if I can just get you to _help_ a little, most of these should be salvageable.”

“Yeah, yeah, hold still.” He grabbed one red boot and pulled straight toward himself. Cap had gone headfirst through the circular rack, so coming out the way he’d gone in was simplest, but that wasn’t obvious from where Steve was sprawled in a tangle of plastic hangers, metal racks and leather … studded leather … Steve shook himself free of a tangle of hangers and flimsy cords and Clint paused, head tilted, a grin creeping across his face as he looked around the shop. Bettie Page in dominatrix gear smiled down at him from above the undamaged register and the shelf to the left held an array of vibrators, dildos and butt plugs. “Not swimsuits, Cap.”

Steve pulled an underbust corset from the floor by its lacings. “Not . . . oh!”

“Though with the array of teal and gold spandex, I can understand your confusion. Stripperwear,” he said as he pointed to the remains of the wall that now mostly just framed a few brave early responders trying not to stomp on the scattered loaves of bread, “to the left, fuzzy handcuffs to the right, and King Dong in the glass case.”

“King Kong,” Steve corrected, as he hung the leather corset in his hands over a still standing rack of pleather hotpants. “Movies are over here.”

Clint tapped the glass of the case. “Nope, I meant what I said.”

Steve glanced at the remarkable specimen of phallic extravagance Clint was pointing to. To his credit, he didn’t blink. He pulled a dvd case from the revolving wire rack. “This isn’t the version of Harry Potter we saw, either.”

“Yeah, c’mon, let’s get you out of here before TMZ shows up and I get yelled at by Hill again. Actually, if the tabloids get shots of you holding a fifteen-inch dildo, I’ll probably merit a Fury lecture. I don’t want that, you don’t want that, so let’s go tiptoe through the Lay’s, shall we?” He made a sweeping after-you gesture to the broken wall.

“There’s nothing shameful about a healthy display of sexuality,” Steve said with the confidence of someone who’d finally quit blushing at Vicky’s Secret ads. With a little help. And a lot of ribbing. And an off-the-record sit down with Hill that Clint would give blood to get a transcript of.

“Tabloids are shameful, that’s why I’m avoiding baiting them. And I’m going to repress your statement until tonight, in _private_ , when we can discuss Tony Stark’s idea of pop culture and what the fly-over states think of him, you, and fetish gear.”

“Hey, there’s one of us!”

“Jesus fuck.” Clint turned to find Steve holding a copy of The XXX-Vengers. “PR couldn’t kill that?”

“Tony would find it amusing.”

“He was probably their technical adviser. Or financial backer. Maybe both. Tell you what. We’ll come back, in civvies, and hit their fire sale, buy a copy for everyone and all of the edible undies for Thor, help the owner get back on his feet, okay? But we’ll do it _out of uniform_.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Steve slid the dvd case back into the rack and turned to the shattered plaster of the hole in the wall.

“I’m using my SHIELD credit card, though. My rep with Accounting is starting to slip,” Clint said, and he could see Steve’s shoulders move as he laughed silently.

They joined Natasha at the SHIELD SUV, hovering as two black suited agents tucked Bruce into the backseat. She threw a blanket over his snores and closed the door. “Where’ve you two been?” She punched Clint’s shoulder. “And you’re on my shit list, blabbermouth. Stitches.” She pointed to neatly taped gauze on her shoulder.

Clint rubbed at his arm, wincing for show. “I could have tossed you my duct tape and saved them the trouble. Steve found a new store, wanted to do some shopping. Bondage wear, things that go buzz, porn.”

She paused with one foot on the running board and he was one of maybe three people in the world who would recognize the look on her face as hysterical joy.

\--::--

Steve leaned on the railing of the landing and gazed over the dance floor, watching Clint and Natasha, or Misha and Lucinda, or whoever they both were this week, dance under flashing lights and suddenly the scandalously flipping skirts of swing seemed tame. He shook his head. Now they just didn’t wear skirts and flashed their panties all the time. He let a smile show as he watched Natasha’s thighs and Clint’s arms and, more intimate than the bared skin under the flickering lights, their easy smiles and casual grace. Steve could see how careful they were to move almost constantly, glancing at one another with heavy lidded openly apparent sexual desire but watching, always, the others on the floor, the shadows of the club, one another’s backs.

Everyone around them surely thought they had eyes only for one another. Steve knew better. He’d seen them dance, truly dance, with one another, not in skin tight trousers or lace over lace, but in threadbare loose clothes with ragged hems and oil stains, circling one another on the grey-white mat at the gym at HQ, sliding in and under one another, near lethal force barely pulled and blows ending in a caress, Clint running his fingers through Natasha’s hair only to tighten and hold and pull, then release as she forced her forearm under his windpipe and threw him to the mat. Then, they were playing; now, surrounded by strangers in a hostile environment, on mission, they were beautiful, but not casual.

Tony slid into place beside him. “That’s quite a show.”

“Yeah.”

“If she was grinding like that against me…those pants don’t have enough room for my hard-on.”

“They probably don’t for his, either.” Steve deliberately yawned to keep from grinding his teeth. “Are you trying to be helpful, Tony?”

“Not really.”

“You’re succeeding.”

Tony laughed. “No, no, old man, you can’t _tell_ me I’m getting to you. That takes all the fun out of it.”

“I’m watching people have sex to hideously loud music--”

“Dancing.”

“What?”

“They’re dancing, they’re not having sex. We need to find you movies that don’t fade to black with swelling violins.” Steve pointed to the couple in the far corner of the floor and Tony nodded and said, “Okay, yeah, those two are having sex, but our people are dancing. What’s with you? You liked …oh!”

“What?”

“I figured it out.”

“Probably not,” Steve said.

Tony said, “You persist in underestimating me. You aren’t pissy about the other disco sticks getting ridden down there, you’re territorial.” He slapped Steve in the middle of the chest with the back of his hand and Steve narrowed his eyes. Tony blithely ignored him. “Get over yourself. She works undercover. She’s gonna get pawed. Eventually SweatySuave is going to show, and then she’s gonna get pawed by him, and _then_ she’ll wheedle the contact information for the next link on the chain of Armageddon and by wheedle I mean torture and we’ll go back home and you can be stuffy and pine for your Little Red-Haired girl from a distance.”

“I’m not pining.” Steve said. He didn’t bother to correct Tony about who he was watching.

“Little Red-Haired Girl was a pop culture reference, by the way.”

“Go away, Tony.”

“We need to marathon those. There’s the Christmas special, the Easter special, the baseball one, Thanksgiving, the Great Pumpkin.”

“What’s the Great Pumpkin?”

“He flies over the … no, no. It’s context specific. But a mandatory part of the modern cultural experience. I’ll add it to the list.”

“Popcorn Night?”

“Popular culture update and assimilation training. With popco --” Tony tilted his head sharply and glanced to the roof. “Ping. Act casual. Oh right, lost cause. Here.” He handed over his glass and headed for the stairs.

Steve sniffed, then took a careful sip. He expected the bitter burn of alcohol, but instead tasted only the ubiquitous over-sweetened modern soda, happily watered down with melting ice. Natasha vanished, literally, vanished; he was watching them, refusing to look away, and suddenly Clint was arms up, bouncing with a pair of girls, both brunette, and Steve blinked. Clint grinned, left the girls to wiggle with one another, and jogged up the stairs to join Steve at the balcony. “Please tell me that’s water.”

Steve handed over Tony’s glass and Clint drained it. He mumbled around a chip of ice, “We’re to stay in the open areas and hold action.”

Steve shrugged. “Hurry up and wait. Some things don’t change.” They stared, shoulder to shoulder at the writhing crowd below them. “So, you and Natasha, you’re partners?” Steve asked.

Clint grinned at the dance floor, but his eyes were flicking from the half-lit emergency exits to the white border of light around the door behind the bar. “Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Seven years. No, wait, eight. Well, about nine and a half, but really only just under eight. We met ten years ago, and we were working together since Minsk, but not really, and then there was the clusterfuck in Brunei. So, yeah, eight. Ish. Definitely by London.”

“And you have multiple partners. Openly.”

“We switch out handlers, yeah, and get assigned solo or teamed as needed. I mean, skill sets are skill sets, and sometimes you want sneaky and sometimes you want the big boom.” He did a hip thrust into the balcony railing, less lewd than comedic, and grinned. “Different tools for different jobs.” Steve, next to him, stayed silent and chewed his lip. Clint said, “You do know that when Tony calls me a tool, he’s being insulting, but when I refer to myself as a tool, I’m being specifically metaphorical. Skill set. Shwoosh-thwack.”

“That’s not actually where I got lost.”

“Oh, crap, you meant _partner_ partner. Natasha and me. Uh, yeah, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. I mean, we have sex, but we’re … um, it’s a thing, not a grand romance. We’re kind of complicated.“

“For a world of casual sex, everything seems to be complicated.” Steve rubbed his eyebrows and said, “Fumbled kisses and stolen touches in the dark with an outward show of propriety is my norm.” He counted off on his fingers as he continued, “My immediate models for modern dating are you and her, Tony and Pepper –“

Clint grabbed his hand and pulled it down. “Oh god, no, you’d do better to go to chick flicks and romcoms than us. Only not. You know, I’d never really considered it, but there is no good sexual and or romantic example I can point you to in television or movies. Titanic’s not an option. We should ask Pepper.”

“I know that Natasha’s not allowed to pick the movie any more.”

“In her defense, she was trying to give context for the Team Edward and Team Jacob comments. She hadn’t actually watched the movie either.”

“Mm hmmm.”

Clint rubbed his shoulder, then his ear and Steve heard the click of the comm unit being activated. “Okay, guys, group effort. What modern film shows an actual romantic relationship progressing in a healthy way? Anything with terminal illness is right out.”

After a long pause, Bruce said, “The Mummy?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Your suggestion is an undead Egyptian bringing plagues?”

“You said relationship. Rick and Evie build a romantic relationship on a foundation of mutual competence and respect.”

Clint glanced up at Steve and shrugged. “The scary thing is he’s not wrong. We need to add that to Popcorn Night. Just the first two, though, because the third --”

“May I remind you gentlemen that these are for…”

Clint interrupted Agent Walker. “Team use. I’m using them for team. Going offline now.” Clint rubbed his shoulder again. Steve couldn’t see his hand go anywhere near his ear, but the comm in his own ear clicked off again. “Fuck, I miss Coulson. Walker has no sense of humor at all. Coulson would have given us suggestions. Good ones.”

“Walker’s right. We’re here on business.”

“So off I go, gettin’ bizzy.” Clint handed the empty glass to Steve and went back downstairs, bobbing his head, his entire body, to the thumping beat of the music. 

\--::--

The DEA and NYPD held a press conference outside the front door of the club, in front of the cartel leader being carefully escorted off site and into the loving arms of the American judicial system, his arms gingerly held behind him, his privacy semi-protected by a dangling NYPD windbreaker, the media and the asshole’s lawyers watching every inch of coverage. Captain America spoke eloquently about protecting the world’s children and Agent Walker stood behind him as the DEA mouthpiece thanked them both and cameras flashed around them.

In an office building an alleyway away, Nat and Clint played sickle and hammer with a nameless man in the drug lord’s entourage. She cut with her tongue, he hit with his fists, and the guy turned from one to the other until he spun in on himself and fell apart at their feet. There would be no cameras, there would be no defense lawyers, there would be no press release. What there was, though, was a key card and a name from the nameless man and an account and coordinates to a dropspot in Kowloon.

\--::--

 

Steve stood at the bookshelf that had been given over to DVDs. He held a dvd in each hand, and a bright blue hula-wearing monster smiled from the one Clint could see from where he sprawled at the end of the table, picking the tomatoes off his sandwich. “So how is that pronounced?” 

Clint swallowed a bite and said, “Lee-lo and Stitch, as in sewing. Good music. Like all Disney, might make you cry.”

“I’m not living down Simba for a while, am I? No, I meant this one, Zzz-vengers…. Ekissvengers.” Steve waved the XXX-Vengers dvd case in his far hand.

“I thought Bruce threw that away.” He tossed a crumpled paper napkin at Bruce who blinked when it landed on his tablet. He picked it up fastidiously and dropped it on the floor beside the couch.

“He must have gotten distracted,” Steve said. Bruce frowned at him over his glasses, then blinked and shrugged. “Did you watch it?”

“No,” Clint said, then blinked and added, “Wait, did you?” Steve shot him a look better placed on a twelve year old girl and Clint shook his head. ”Okay, remember what I said about romcoms not reflecting reality? Neither does porn.”

“So people don’t really think we do this?” Steve tossed him the dvd, spinning the rectangle across the room.

Clint caught it one handed and waved it. “They probably _wish_ we did this. It’s not stamina, it’s filming over several days.”

“Some of it looked painful.”

“The screaming and cussing’s a .. something that people have come to expect. Talking dirty isn’t required for real people.”

“Oh, good.”

“If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right. If it is fun, go for it.”

“Even the spanking?”

“Depends on who’s … I am not having this conversation with you. Ask Bruce.”

“Oh hell no,” Bruce muttered, abandoning his tablet in his rush.

“But I’m _acclimating!_ ” Steve called after him. Clint grabbed his sandwich, left the soda, and slid through the open doorway. He thought he heard Steve chuckle.

\--::--

Clint blocked the return strike and launched one of his own, his fingertips brushing Steve’s eyebrow as he ducked out of the way. “You’ve been working with Nat, haven’t you?”

Steve grinned like a kid. “She thought I could use some technique to go along with brute ungainly strength.”

“Her words _and_ her leg sweep. Easy to recognize. But you know what’s fun?”

“What?”

“This!” He pulled Steve forward at his left thigh and dropped his right shoulder to barrel him over, rolling them both over, only to grin as Steve recovered as quickly as Clint himself did. Steve laughed, open and happy, as his open handed strike met nothing but air. Clint smiled. “I can’t do that with her, she’s too small. This, too.” He feinted with his right, then snaked his left hand around Steve’s and pulled him over his bent leg. Tasha was so flexible she could twist sideways faster than he could pull, but Steve went over and down, thumping to the mat, and Clint landed on top of him, carefully placing his forearm across Steve collarbone instead of his trachea.

“Bet she can’t do this, then. ” Steve tucked Clint’s free wrist into his ribs. Clint didn’t break the hold, willing to see what he was going to do. Steve caught the edge of his collar with one hand and his waistband with the other and shoved, using only his upper body, throwing Clint four feet into the air, flailing and cursing. He tucked into a roll on the way back down and came up onto one knee, lashing out in a strike. Steve didn’t deflect it; he took it, solid as a concrete wall, and Clint put two more hits on him, enough to disable a normal man, barely enough to make Steve gasp and reach out, catch Clint’s elbow in a twist and slam him backward, over Steve’s shoulder and into the mat. Clint bounced and Steve put his knee on his sternum, one hand on each wrist, pinning him flat. Clint slid his left leg to lever himself outward and Steve collapsed full against him, starfishing and covering him at all points. Clint froze. He’d been half hard since being launched skyward, and Steve’s pin had ratcheted half hard to horny.

Steve blinked and hesitated. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

“Did I hurt you?” He took his weight up onto his hands and feet, essentially holding himself over Clint and Clint bit his lip. That wasn’t helping.

“No, no, I’m fine. I just, ah, need a moment to think about baseball.”

“This is another cultural ref … oh, wait, thinking about baseball?” Steve tipped sideways to land stretched out beside him, backs flat against the mat and only their shoulders touching. He grabbed his knee and pulled it to his chest, so Clint did the same, feeling the stretch shift to warmth in his lower back. “Speaking of cultural reference and the twenty-first century way … .”

“So long as we aren’t talking about inappropriate boners,” Clint interrupted.

“Can I ask you about sex?”

Clint let his head fall back to the mat with an audible whack. “Go for it.”

“How do you date?”

“Me? I don’t.”

“Anyone, I guess, but yeah, particularly … well, me. I went to a bar, but … it’s not like I could invite someone to come up and look at my etchings.”

“You could pick up etchings.”

“I can’t do anything about Tony wandering through the room in his underwear wearing bits of metal, or you and Natasha playing hide and seek with explosives.” Clint raised one hand but Steve smacked him. “I don’t care how small they were. And that’s not the point. Not really. A civilian wouldn’t adapt well, and on top of that there are, well, privacy issues.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” Clint said to the ceiling.

“I did an internet search on Tony.”

“Oh crap.”

“Learned a new word: paparazzi.”

“I feel like I should apologize on behalf of everyone who ever owned a camera with a long lens.”

Steve ignored him. “I need to catch up just to be on the same level as everyone else in the world without worrying that she’s got her cellphone set to record video while I fumble a bra closure and make the mistakes that everyone else did in their teens. So my options are you, or finding a civilian and telling lies about why I don’t know any of this already, that I’ve been living on a tropical island all my life or something, or giving a false name and history and finding a cheap hotel and never seeing the same person twice, or conscripting a willing SHIELD agent.”

Clint felt compelled to point out, “There are some fine-ass SHIELD agents.” 

“Who are paid to deal with us. I do not want to have … relations … with someone who will then be required to debrief.”

“You’d have a line of volunteers, I swear. We could start a waiting list.”

“Having sex with me shouldn’t be a condition of employment. So consider internal options, within the circle of the team. My first thought was actually Pepper.”

“I can see that. She’s … methodical. Patient. Organized. Legs up to there.”

“But she’s in a relationship that I don’t want to chance disrupting.”

“Which takes out Tony, too,” Clint said. “Thor, while entertaining, wouldn’t really help with the whole normalizing cultural expectations thing even if he weren’t light years or parsecs or whatever away. Also, I think he’s attached to the woman at the Bifrost briefing.”

“Fury’s my CO, Hill outranks me, I think, Natasha’s … um.”

“’Intimidating’ works. I won’t be offended. She’s scarier than I am and over the years, I’ve come to terms with it. Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll be your training room for sex; get you up to speed for actual dating. You’re on your own for social interaction. Play up the shy and sweet thing, though. You’re rocking it and it’s not likely to get you slapped.” He looked left, but Steve was staring upward. “You’re more open minded than I expected, though.”

“You keep thinking your generation invented sex. Actually, I’m a little surprised that you didn’t pop me one when I suggested it.” He rolled up to lean on one elbow, not quite leaning over Clint. “In fact, you popped first.”

Clint answered his grin with one of his own. “Yeah, well, I’m more flexible than most.”

“I’m kind of counting on that.”

Clint narrowed his eyes and shifted his gaze from the ceiling to Steve’s face. “You’ve been learning to flirt from Tony, haven’t you?”

Steve scrunched his nose. “That bad?”

“Acquired taste.”

“Can I?” Steve pulled himself forward to take most of his weight on his arm, curled over where Clint still lay flat on the mat. Clint could wiggle away, could raise his off hand to block Steve’s slow movement or he could curl up, just a bit, to meet him halfway. Steve parted his lips, and Clint followed where he led, the barest touch of tongue, the slightest movement of joined lips.

The door to the gym opened and Steve, above him, tensed but didn’t move. Clint pressed a gentle kiss to the side of Steve’s mouth and called to the room, “Hi Tasha.”

“You do realize that other people use those flat surfaces,” she answered.

“Our clothes are on.”

“As are the cameras.”

“Tony’s a voyeur; we know it, but we tolerate it for the sake of team unity,” he answered, but Steve rolled to sitting then fluidly to standing. Clint envied him his knees, and held up one hand for Steve to pull. He leaned in close and whispered for Steve’s sake, knowing full well that Natasha could hear him anyway. “Make a list. Questions, dating conventions, terminology, positions, whatever you want. I keep veto power by line. We’ll do it Pepper’s way, with a calendar and a checklist. How’s that?”

Steve nodded at them both as he grabbed his towel and left.

Natasha stretched one leg to him and he took her ankle and held it, drawing it slowly over his head, letting her control the speed. She wound up pressing against him, ramrod straight, and she kissed him briefly on the cheek before slowly pulling away. “I thought he was getting less skittish?”

“He’s working on it. Wants to use me for sex ed. Trying to integrate.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” She smiled and lifted the other ankle to him. “He was exploring. I vetted the sports bar.”

“I think he spotted the tails.”

She hesitated, rubbing at her thigh. “He’s supposed to be good.”

“He is good. You need to come down?” She shook her head, digging a knuckle into the back of her knee, and he continued, “Tactician and all that. We knew that. Looks like he’d been thinking, considering options. I accidentally gave him an opportunity, and he wasn’t expecting it but took it on the fly.”

“We all do that. Up.” She leaned in, and he pulled her ankle higher. “Hold. Dammit.”

“Bad?”

“No, just frustrating.” She dug her knuckles into the muscle again.

“If it’d make you feel better, you can kick me around a little.” He leered like a melodrama villain. “You know how you love it.”

“No. You’re the one who considers hand-to-hand foreplay. Up.”

He pulled her ankle over his head and she flowed forward without a hitch. “Wandering hands are wandering hands. I’m not picky.”

She put her arms around his neck and dropped her forehead to his collar. “Just don’t teach Golden Boy your bad habits.”

“Only the good ones. Can we borrow you for advanced classes? We can schedule cunnilingus for the final exam.”

“I’m apparently not his type.” She patted his cheek and pulled away, controlling the descent.

“I think you are. That’s the problem.” He backed away as she bent forward, then rolled into a handstand, her ponytail dangling. “Ferocious and female. He could fall for you. I’m more of a buddy.”

She tipped over, smoothly extending back to standing, her arms held high. She dropped them and tilted her head to look at him. “Clint, don’t … are you…” She crossed her arms and frowned. “Don’t open your ribcage to him.”

“That’s an incredibly disturbing and graphic image.” He stooped to grab his towel, but she caught the fabric of his shirt in one hand.

“Open your chest, wear your heart on your sleeve, whatever. He’s … I know your tastes, Clint.”

“Are you telling me not to fall in love with someone out of my league again?” Clint laughed and said, “At least I get to tap this one before I get him killed.” He blocked the strike she threw at him. “Jesus, Tasha, humor.”

“Gallows humor.”

“And you're the only one allowed to use that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I won’t break him.”

“He might break you.”

“You know me better than that,” He answered with an easy, practiced grin. “Just sex, to prep him for meeting someone real. Just buddies.”

She cuffed him on the side of the head as he walked by, but he kept his grin until the door closed behind him.

\--::--

Clint popped the second beer bottle open, figuring there was no reason to put it back in the fridge. He swiped half heartedly at the collected condensation on the table and scratched his belly, idly considering alternative plans for the evening. He’d barely swallowed when the door pinged. “Hey, you showed.”

“Did … I was supposed to, right?”

“I figured at some point you’d realize that I wouldn’t help a lot with the whole bra fumbling thing. Until we bring in Natasha, ‘cause I’ve got a one handed maneuver that even works through a denim jacket.” He started to hand Steve the bottle, realized he’d already taken a swig, and pulled it back, but Steve was reaching for it, so he pressed the bottle into Steve’s hand and said, “Right, you take that one, I’ll get a fresh one. No, wait, I’ll get you a fresh one. Or you can drink that one, that’s good.”

“Sorry about being late. Tony caught me in the elevator.”

“Did he leave bruises?” At Steve’s frown, Clint smiled and spread his hands wide. “Complete package, sense of humor included. You want another?”

“A glass of water would be nice, actually. “ Steve shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I made a list, like you said.“ Steve waved the tablet but didn’t hand it over. “Started with one line, sex. Then I thought that might be a little too vague, so I did an internet search for specifics. You want to know what I ended up with?”

“Besides a headache and a trail through your internet history that would probably concern the shrinks?” He held up one hand. “Hold that thought.” He opened the door and leaned into the hallway, calling out, “JARVIS? Please clear Captain Roger’s browser cache on his personal laptop, thank you.” He pulled the door shut behind him, adding “If we’re gonna live with Skynet, we might as well make use of it. So what did you end up with?”

“One item. Sex. With a caveat. Not posted to the internet.”

“Oh, half that shit is photoshopped. I kind of hope. Okay, ignoring what the rest of the world does publicly, I do this privately, but everything that you don’t know about me, I don’t know about you, so we’re going to have to feel each other out.”

“Was that pun deliberate?”

“I’m good with pretending it was.”

Steve grinned and Clint felt his heart jump; yeah, this was going to be trouble. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Steve’s, not pressuring, nearly chaste, with just enough motion to hint at what else they could do.

Steve leaned after him as he leaned back, and pressed into Clint’s hand along his jaw. “Good so far.”

Clint rubbed his thumb along Steve’s lower lip. Steve’s eyes were downcast, his ridiculously long lashes brushing down and Clint bit his tongue to keep from saying something unforgivably trite. He backed away to pull off his shirt and Steve frowned. “Dude, you’ve seen me naked before. You having second though –“

“The bruising,” Steve said, cutting him off.

Clint tossed the shirt in the general direction of the chair. “You’ve seen that before, too.”

“It looks painful.”

“Focus, Steve. Sex.” He snapped open the buttons of his fly and grinned at Steve’s undivided attention below the waist.

“Okay, yeah.” Steve stepped in, crowding him against the wall. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Figured you could. You’ve got one of these, after all.”

“And seen others, thank you.”

“Cool, so you’ve done this,” Clint said, as he slouched, his legs spread wide, dragging his hand up and down his cock, wanton and slow.

“Yeah, with … “ a shadow that Clint half recognized crossed over Steve’s face.

“No. Big hint, buddy, huge hint, the kind of mistake you only need to make once, so let me have already made it for you. Whoever he is, don’t. Don’t wrap your hand around my dick and measure someone else’s, okay?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“I’m not,” Steve said and Clint figured that would have to do.

“Nobody here but us?”

“In a room with lights on, without anyone on the other side of the wall and no one likely to walk in.”

“Oh, I remember those years.”

“Yeah, that would be last year.”

Clint stepped on one leg cuff to drag his pants down and wriggle out of them, kicking them to one side and spreading his arms, mindful not to raise them high enough to strain his ribs or the long scratch across his back that Steve might not have noticed. “Full light, full nudity, lock on the door, a bed with sheets, and you’re wearing too many clothes.”

Steve dropped his shirt where they stood and shed his pants and tighty whiteys by the time he got the three steps to the bed, throwing himself flat on it.

“I like your enthusiasm.” Clint followed at a slightly more sedate pace.

“I like your smile,” Steve answered, and Clint blinked. He hadn’t realized he was smiling. “And everything else.” He grinned up as Clint crawled over him and settled between his hips. “This counts as sex?”

“You having fun?” Clint asked as he wrapped one hand around both their cocks and gave an experimental tug. Steve nodded, his eyes wide. “Physical contact? Potential for orgasms?” Steve nodded again, and Clint continued to stroke them both together, even as his tone. “You gonna argue semantics with me, Steve?”

Steve shook his head and Clint chuckled. Steve’s cock jumped in his hand and Clint filed that reaction for some time when he hadn’t reduced the poor guy to speechlessness with a casual handjob.

\--::--

The bottom half of the robot twitched, scattering sparks. Clint shot one more arrow into it, counted to three and smirked when it went boom, spewing sparks and wires in a dirty fountain.

Cap shot him a glare over his shoulder and Clint shrugged. “It was moving.” 

“Hawkeye, report to the medics.”

Clint rolled up to sit cross legged on the gravel that had been a sidewalk that morning and cupped one ear. “You say Medical, but I hear Hide-and-Seek.”

“Medical. Now. Or do you require an escort?”

Clint hawked and spat concrete dust to one side and peered up, through the still-settling cloud of dust, at Steve. “Fireman’s carry, or bride over the threshold?”

“Over my shoulder, your butt in the air.”

“Dunno about anyone else, but _I_ just popped a boner at the thought,” Tony announced to the street and the first responders and the civilians leaning over the yellow police tape with their cell phones raised.

Steve closed his eyes and Clint felt a little sorry. Very little. Infinitesimally. He unfolded up into standing and waved off the others. “Didn’t need to know you were turned on by my sweet ass-ets, Tony. Does this mean I get to talk about Pepper’s –“

“Barton!”

“Can’t hear you, Cap. Offline and reporting to Medical, as ordered.”

Cap came around the corner at speed twenty minutes later and Clint could see the moment when Captain America transformed into Steve, when he shoved back the cowl and nodded at the onsite medic. “Cap! Tell him that I am perfectly capable of taking care of this at home.”

“Can’t, I’m the honest one. Should have grabbed Tony.” Steve grinned as the onsite grunted amusement and Clint clutched at his heart. “But I can promise that we can take care of you. What’s up?”

“I’m good with butterflies.”

“Butterflies are lovely,” Steve agreed, then with a straight face, turned to the doc. “Do you need me to sit on him so you can stitch him up?”

“He probably could get away with just steri-strips here and here, but I’m worried about this one.” The doc stepped close and Steve grabbed Clint’s jaw to hold him still so he and the medic could peer at the slash across Clint’s shoulders. “If that reopens, he won’t know, and so I’d rather suture it.”

“Hawkeye, why are you objecting to the good doctor’s needlepoint efforts?”

“Save it for someone who needs it. I’ve had worse.”

“So have I, but not when he’s got needle and thread already … wow, that’s tiny. Look at the … that’s neat, it’s already threaded?”

The medic said dryly, “I would imagine there have been some improvements in medical field equipment since the last time you saw these.”

“I’ll say, look, it’s single use and he’s already cracked the package. He has to use it now.”

“What the … why do you care?”

“I have to keep you healthy, Barton. You’re mine.”

Clint knew Steve didn’t mean it like that, knew he meant team or squad or whatever, but the idea stunned him so much that he didn’t twitch at the cold of the antiseptic or the salt stink of iodine. Jesus wept, he thought. I’ve got it bad.

\--::--

Tony strode into the living room in a black tac vest over red silk boxers. “Shoot me. Something fast.”

Steve dropped the crossword but not his pen. “What? No!”

“Okay, a strike then, but fast and hard, don’t pull it.” He pointed to his chest, saying, “Right here,” then threw his arms wide.

Steve said, “Tony, I’m not going to –“

A slim black matte knife bounced off Tony’s vest and skidded to the floor. Natasha, across the room, shrugged.

“That’s the only time you’re ever going to do what I ask, isn’t it?” Tony said, bouncing up on his toes.

“Yep,” she said, flicking the screen of her ereader. “Shouldn’t have wasted it.”

“What’s your point, Tony?”

“Watch!” Tony reached over and touched his toes. “Okay, this would be more impressive if Bendalicious were doing it, but, hey!” Steve’s poke to the gut had been strong enough to push him off balance. Steve frowned. Tony grinned. “Do it again, slowly.” Steve pressed against Tony’s ribs, feeling the material in the vest ooze around the pressure, like mud.

“What is that?”

“A variant of a non-newtonian liquid. It’s not actually non-newtonian, and it’s not really a liquid, either, but ‘Miss I can’t wear body armor and be effective in the field’ over there is, uh, what?” Tony blinked at Natasha who was suddenly twenty feet closer than she had been.

Natasha ran her hands over his lower back. “Most of my movements are going to be sharp enough to trigger the seizing reaction.”

“Not after I get done with it.”

“Tony, I’ve never needed body armour before.”

“You weren’t an Avenger before.” 

\--::-

Clint waited for Natasha to dump her bag and her shoes and handed her a glass of water and a peach slice. “So, you busy tonight?” He said, talking around most of another slice. 

She chewed and swallowed. “Why, you finally decided to share your new toy with me? Or are we double dating?”

“Not my decision. And just us. He’s still a little gunshy about TMZ and you’re safe.” She grinned, and he ducked his head. “Oh shut up, you know what I mean.”

She stole the last slice of peach from his fingers. “Yeah, I think I can clear my schedule for a hot threeway with two superheroes.”

“Just one hero. And me.”

“You trying to talk me out of it?” she said sweetly.

“Shutting up now.”

“What time do you want me there?”

“Whenever’s good,” he said as he shrugged and turned to the sink to wash his hands. 

“I’ll polish my boots and oil up the black leather.”

“Much as I love your boots, for him, I think white cotton panties will do the trick.”

“Oh, kinky. Classic for a reason. Give me an hour.” 

\--::--

Steve marvelled at the spread of his hands on her hips. Clint, behind her, rubbed his thumb between her legs with a practiced ease that Steve envied. They fit together, matched in strength and grace, and he was at the same time too strong and too weak. He rubbed his hands up her thighs and for a fleeting moment wondered if Clint would entwine his hand in Steve’s if he tapped the free one, the one that roamed freely up Natasha’s ribs to cup under her breast, to rub his thumb over her nipple, to tug her back against his own hips, pulling her up from where she was rocking on Steve’s dick. Then she tightened her legs, Clint laughed low and quiet and the change in tempo and pressure hit Steve like a fist to the gut . He couldn’t keep still; he’d been trying, but he could feel her moving, not just the slow slide, but smaller, more fragile, tight and smooth and fluttering around him. He whimpered as she moaned. Steve dropped his hands to the sheets below him to keep from grabbing at her, at him, clutching them both hard enough to cage them, to keep them, to hold them to him. She hiccuped and leaned back to kiss Clint again, slow and deep, then stilled. She patted his chest and said, “Give me a second, okay, Steve?”

“You’re beautiful,” he answered. Her cheeks were pink, a flush that crept all the way down to her chest. She looked down at him, not surprised so much as evaluating.

Clint pulled her hair out of the way and whispered into her neck, punctuating it with kisses, “Sorry, I meant to warn you about that. Steve’s big on expressing himself.”

“Being honest.”

Natasha didn’t smile, exactly. But she looked like she was thinking about it. “I _am_ beautiful,” she said and Steve nodded, his hands around her waist again. “But that’s not what you mean.”

Clint was still peppering kisses across her shoulders and up into her hairline. “No, really, he read it in some online guide to sex. Honesty and communication and something about three Gs.”

“You’ve been using Dan Savage as a baseline for 21st century sexual mores?”

“Tony said…”

Clint held up one finger to stop him without looking up from Natasha’s back. “May I gently remind you of the last five times that ‘Tony said’ something?”

Natasha did smile at that and Steve could feel her shift in ways that reminded him that they were still actively having sex.

“So you two _communicate_ , hunh?” she said with a look that made Steve wary. 

“Oh god, you would think this is funny,” Clint mumbled into her hairline. 

“That’s because it is, shift up.”

“No, donwanna.” But he slid off Steve’s thighs and rolled to lounge like a Roman emperor, one hand on Steve’s thigh, the other reaching up to twirl the curls of Natasha’s hair around his fingertips.

“Ah ah, but this isn’t about you.”

“You are not a people pleaser, woman.”

The grin she directed at him was fond. Then she turned the grin to Steve and it twisted into something less fond and a little sharper. He didn’t mind, though, because she slid her hand back and down, behind herself, and did something that somehow made his eyes water and his toes curl and he couldn’t for his life determine what she’d done.

“So Steve, honestly, what do you want from me?”

“Am I no longer in the room?” Clint whined.

“And from him.”

“I’ll agree to almost anything at this point, you know,” Steve said.

“So touch starved he’ll take the wire monkey,” she said to Clint.

“Nat,” Clint said, his tone a warning.

“I’m being honest.”

“I’m going to have to look up wire monkey?” Steve asked.

“Not tonight. Answer the question.”

Steve looked to Clint for a clue, but he was mouthing kisses on Natasha’s thigh and stroking himself with one hand. He looked up to Natasha’s tilted head. “Everything?” She didn’t move, didn’t change anything, the lush open pout of her lips stayed exactly the same, but he’d said the wrong thing, and he knew it. “Anything. Whatever you are willing to give me. Whatever you want ... “ He’d planned to finish that with _to share with me._ but someone had a hand on his balls and beneath and he forgot the question, and, for a split second, his own name. Then the hand stilled and he opened his eyes. Both of them were looking at him, both showing open amusement. “What?”

Clint looked up at Natasha. “Wanna make him make that noise again?”

“What noise?” Steve asked, a little breathless.

Natasha patted his chest. “Hold still,” and she patted him again when he pouted as she pulled up and off his dick, only to re-straddle him facing the other way. “No, just … this is going to be fun.”

“Breasts are fun,” he said, but she sank down on him again as Clint’s broad hands pushed his thighs apart, spreading his legs and sliding between them. “Okay, yeah, this view is pretty nice, too.” It was; her waist and butt made an inverted heart and he ran his fingertips around the edges of it as she smiled over her shoulder at him. Then Clint licked him, at base of his cock, where it was cold and bare and then up, until he couldn’t feel Clint’s mouth, but he could feel Natasha flexing and shifting as she slid back down, and Clint’s broad shoulders up against his thighs and they were talking about noises again, but he didn’t care, didn’t hear anything, and he had to move. He put his hands around Natasha’s waist and pulled her up, not much, just enough to pull her back down again, to grind up, to satisfy the need that crawled up his spine. Wary of dislodging them, he pushed up as little as he could, knowing what Clint was doing. On upstrokes he’d swipe down with his tongue, the rasp of his chin against Steve’s balls and he felt a whine, high and needy, escape his own throat as he could hear her, that soft almost hiccup and he gave in, or gave up, or reached out, and let orgasm crawl over him.

His heart was still racing when he opened his eyes to see Clint and Natasha kissing. Her hair, just around her face, was wet with exertion; his skin was wet, on his face and on his hand where he slid it from her shoulder down to cover Steve’s where he still held onto her waist, above the sweet curve of her hip. Steve spread his fingers and Clint entwined his, almost holding hands, as they stroked her back together.

“Okay,” she said into Clint’s neck. “You were right. He’s fun.”

Clint dropped to the bed, pulling Natasha with him and bouncing off Steve’s bicep on the way to the pillow. “Ah yes, the perennial hazard of threeways, extra arms.”

“So, this isn’t actually normal?” He hated the way the very air chilled. “Poor word choice … socially acceptable?”

“Less uncommon than the church ladies would like to think, but yeah, social typical is two by two-- Noah’s Ark.”

“So Bruce with Pepper and Tony…”

“Ah, didn’t think you’d catch that.”

“Were they being subtle?”

“Enh, Tony, you know?” Clint said.

“Elbow,” Natasha said. Clint wiggled, then manhandled Steve’s arm, up and over, threw a pillow off the bed entirely, patted Nat into Steve’s arms and entwined himself around her and half across Steve’s thighs.

“Comfy?” Clint asked.

She wriggled, just a bit. “More than I would have expected, actually.”

“Steve, you good?”

“Yeah, yeah, I really am,” he said and he closed his eyes, his arms around Natasha, Clint a solid and comforting weight across his legs and waist, holding him to the bed, grounding him. 

When he woke, Clint was grinning at him. “Just us. Nat’s already done the Strut of No-Shame.”

“Oh, I, uh, you want to uh, what time is it?”

“As like to run into someone at midnight as dawn around here, but if you’d be more comfortable, I could…”

Steve reeled him in and pressed until Clint relaxed with an audible noise. “No, I just. I just don’t want to scandalize anyone.”

“We don’t do public displays anyway, and inside the building, well, like you said, it’s not like Bruce or Tony’s going to … actually, not true, but Tony’s going to give you grief for sleeping with either of us, and Bruce won’t for either, so...” he shrugged, and said, “it’s not like it matters.”

“And outside the building, it’s none of their damn business.”

\---:::---

“So how long are you on standdown?”

“Til I’m needed.”

“Uh hunh, and the docs having you wearing the incredibly stylish neoprene brace for how long?

“Longer than I need it.” She turned another page.

“I looked up the wire monkey thing.”

“Mm?” To a stranger, she may have seemed engrossed, but Steve was pretty confident he knew better.

“We’re all broken in different ways. Do you really think I’m the balanced one here?”

“Pepper seems to have a solid grip on herself,” Natasha said and Steve grinned.

“Wanna burn off some steam?”

“Clint’s on assignment.”

Steve shrugged. “Want a sandwich instead?”

“Nah, you know what, yeah, let’s burn off some energy.” She reached out and grabbed his hand in almost the same way that Clint did, and Steve grinned.

\--::--

“Where …Clint taught you that one.” 

Steve ducked his head. He was blushing. He’d spent the last twenty minutes taking her apart with his tongue and yet, he could feel the blush creeping up from his chest. “He used an orange.”

“Good trick to remember. Really good. Will get you references and locker room chatter, yes.” She stretched and wriggled and Steve bit his lip, not sure of the protocol of reminding her that she’d come, quite enthusiastically and he was ... watching her tear open a familiar silver packet. Oh good. She handed the french letter inside to him and he rolled it on, a little shaky, carefully pinching the tip like the box told him to. 

She stretched beneath him, languid and beautiful and if he were a better man, a more experienced lover, he might have said something romantic, maybe compared her to Gauguin's nudes, but he wasn’t and every thought in his brain greyed out as he pushed in, soft and slick and enveloping. She ran her palms up his arms, sliding them up and he dared open his eyes again. Pre-Raphaelites, auburn women with secrets in their eyes and she wrapped her legs around him and moved and he said something, but even he was sure it wasn’t in words, and yet she hummed in agreement and smiled at him as he rocked slowly back and forth, grinding on the upswing to feel her breath catch. When Steve had closed his fingers around Clint’s wrists, he had bucked up against him, so he pulled Natasha’s wrist up and over her head. She moved so fast, both his hands were numb before his brain registered the strikes. “Sorry.”

“Most people would expect me to apologize,” she said from three feet away from the bed, her back to him.

He rolled up to sit at the edge of the bed and rubbed at the nerve center under his elbow. “How about you just ... oh! I figured it out.” He shook out his hands.The last three fingers on each were still numb, but he stood and slid his arms around her in an embrace. “This” he said, as he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples, “isn’t a problem.” She shook her head, so he leaned in and brushed his nose under her ear and whispered to her neck, “and this isn’t a problem, but this … .” He closed just his forefinger and thumb around one wrist, loosely. “This makes you unhappy.”

“Yes.”

“Can’t have that, now can we?” He entwined his fingers in hers and tugged her back to the bed. 

“You don’t feel the need to _communicate?_ ” she asked as he rolled onto the bed and patted her thigh, open handed, without even curling his fingers around her, over him. 

“I thought we did,” he said, and she blinked twice and smiled and shook her head. She leaned over him to slide home, the tips of her hair tickling his mouth, and he rested his hands on her hips, letting her control everything. Really, that worked out well for him, too, though he caught himself grabbing at her twice and eventually put his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers behind his neck, though when he came, he couldn’t resist pushing up, just for one last stroke. She laughed as she was lifted off the bed as his back bowed and butt clenched. He figured laughing was good and smiled back as he settled back down, careful to let her fold her legs again. She smiled and pulled him close for a lingering kiss as his heart slowed from racing and about the time he caught his breath, she pushed off him with a pat to his chest. She bent to pick up her blouse and he lay back on the bed, enjoying the view, the fading endorphin rush. 

“Still not sure of the etiquette of this. Should I thank you?”

“It’s a better choice than starting with ‘You’re welcome’. Though I would suggest, for other people, at least walking them to the door.”

“That would require moving.”

“Ah, then cuddle.” She winked as he spread his arms wide for her to return. “No, not with me. I don’t cuddle.”

“We could try snuggling, or canoodling, or...” His own shirt hit him in the face. He pulled it down and grinned and she grinned back. He draped it across his crotch, still too hot to pull up the sheet but aware of his nudity as she fiddled with the strap of her bra. 

“Hey, before you go, about Clint’s thing …”

“Sorry, Steve, you’ll have to be more precise. His latest thing is those sonic arrows, and I’ve said all I’m going to about those.”

“I was thinking the holding down thing.”

She looked up. “You don’t have to.”

“I … what?”

“What is it you and Clint say? Donwanna?”

Steve grinned. “ ‘Donwanna, donhaveta.’ I found some stuff on the ‘Net, and … it didn’t look fun. So it’s not on the list.”

“You actually do have a list?”

“Well, not any more.”

“Sometimes something that doesn’t look like fun might be.“ She looked up at Steve as though waiting for an answer, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t asked a question. “Just because it’s not my thing doesn’t mean you might not like it.”

“And he does.”

“If it freaks you out, he can live without it.” She slid into her jeans without a single hop. 

He blinked. “It didn’t occur to me to be freaked out.”

She laughed and leaned over him to pat his jaw. “You really are too good to be true.”

“Wire monkey?” he asked as she walked to the door.

“Oh shut up.” But she blew a kiss across the room at him, and he grinned.

\---:::--- 

Natasha thumbed her password into her phone as she strolled out of Steve’s bedroom. She opened Tony’s Amazon account, then closed it and used Clint’s instead. She considered the big teddy bears, then a couple of retro rag dolls, before the thumbnail image in the suggestions at the bottom of the page caught her eye . Who the hell buys a stuffed spider? she thought, as she clicked it into the cart and typed out, “for cuddling . N-” for the gift card. Maybe Tony’d even be around when Steve opened the box, she thought. Let him wonder why Mr. James F. Cooper was buying Steve a toy arachnid. 

She rubbed at her wrist as she put the phone away and thought about Steve’s question. She thought about it, thought about the way Steve grinned through bloodied lips and damn near fondled the buckles on his shield. She hurt people in every way they could be hurt, and she did it well, but she’d never particularly liked being on either side of it. But Clint, oh Clint liked to press on the bruises and run his fingernails along the rough edge of the healing scratches because he could. Part of it was undoubtedly years of touch starvation, but not all. 

She'd once caught him jacking off with one hand and applying rubbing alcohol to a series of cuts in his upper thigh with the other. She’d been exhausted; they’d run together through falling debris, but she’d been undercover for week in hostile territory, hyperaware and focused. She’d stood for a moment to watch him, not unappreciative of the view, though the ambience hadn’t exactly been enhanced by the stink of chemical and the dried blood flaking to the floor or melting into gory mud as it dripped down his thighs. It took her a moment to realize that he let her catch him, that he was hoping she'd find him, that she'd join him, that she'd wield the rope or buckle the collar on him. He had rocked back on his heels, knees on the cheap hotel carpet, both hands still, one on the streaked cloth, the other around the base of his dick and stared at her and _wanted_ so hard she could taste it from across the room.

She had closed the door. She could play the role; she had done so, strutted through a club full of officials and tourists with pockets heavy with foreign currency, ground a stiletto with precision here, gagged and flogged as needed, cutting out her prey to leave him where her superiors wanted him - the first was left for the press, the second for his superiors, the third was a simple assassination, the fourth and fifth and sixth blended into the twelfth and nineteenth.

She'd done it for the Red Room; she'd do it for SHIELD, but she wouldn't do it for fun. That's how she explained it, later, when he joined her in the common room of the safe house and handed over the half empty bottle. He'd nodded, hadn't apologized, just patted her hand and said, "S'cool. Want a hand?” and she shook her head.

She couldn't and wouldn't and chose not to, not even for him, to whom she owed so much, but nothing she wouldn't give willingly.

But she watched Steve, sometimes, and oh, Clint felt her gaze every time, but Steve seldom caught her looking. She remembered the way Steve rubbed his thumb over the buckle on his shield and smiled.

\--::--

Clint keyed open the door and stopped. Steve shifted, resisting the urge, still, to pull the blanket up to cover his chest.

“You’re in my bed.”

“Yes.”

“I’m yeah, okay, I was going to grab a bite.”

“Okay, anything you want.” He drew up one leg, as deliberately provocative as he could.

Clint rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I’ve got a better idea. Fuck. Boots. Shit. Give me ninety seconds, I swear.”

Steve grinned and sat up, the sheet still barely covering his hips. His uniform wasn’t strip-ready either. Clint was muttering under his breath about redundant systems. Steve laughed. “Yeah, you know you love the buckles when you hit concrete at speed.”

“Not so much when they’re between … You know what? I’m leaving them on.” He grabbed his waistband and yanked it down past his ass and hopped toward the bed, bound at his knees.

“Here, you get that one and I’ll get... no, wait.” He took away the knife that had appeared in Clint’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Hah!” Clint pulled the second boot off while Steve was still holding the open blade. Clint grabbed it and tossed it to the nightstand while shimmying out of his pants. “Wanna get sweaty?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a hero’s welcome.”

“You’ll have to find a hero for that, but I’ll do my best .”

“Hey, that’s ...oh god, do that again.”

Clint propped his chin on Steve’s thigh and grinned wickedly. ”No, no, you were saying something. Rude of me to interrupt, so do go on.”

“You shaved.”

“Had to wait for debrief and I was wearing a chunk of Myanmar. This? You’re naked, waiting in my bed, and we’re talking about shaving?”

“I had a serious question and ... I kind of liked the beard burn.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Steve, what question is serious and yet requires nudity? Unless it’s a rash. Have you got a rash? Get off my sheets.”

Steve clutched at the sheet, then grabbed Clint instead. This had seemed simpler when he was thinking about it. Clint was silently smirking as Steve held him by his shoulders at arm’s length. In the air. “Um,” Steve said and carefully lowered him to his chest , trying to act as though he’d meant to do that. “So, are we casual?”

“You don’t do anything casually, Steve, and certainly not this. Wait, you’re serious?”

“I’m trying to establish boundaries and I can’t… Are you seeing anyone?”

Clint dragged the sheet off him. “Right now, only you. All of you.”

“You’re trying to redirect the conversation.”

Clint licked up Steve’s cock, balls to head, then sucked it down. “Mmmph mm mugh?” He popped off with an obscene noise. “I’m sorry, were we having a conversation? Or was I sucking your cock?”

“Yeah, that second one, oh …”

Clint hummed and Steve ran his fingertips through Clint’s hair, stiff with gel in the front, soft under his fingers behind his ears and forgot what he’d meant to say.

\--::--  
The locals parted with practiced ease as a group of five men, matching boots and BDUs and weaponry, tromped down the middle of the street, disregarding the foot traffic and staring down anyone who might have been there first.

The milling market-goers swirled again behind them as they swept through, searching the skyline and windows for spies and assassins. Clint leaned over the steaming grill and asked in French-accented Malay for horse feet without shrimp and the man looked at him blankly, flipping the skewered fish on the grill to the side without looking. Clint waved the Fodor’s in one hand as he watched the guards move past and corrected his request, ending with s’il vous plait. He overpaid by a factor of ten in the local currency as Natasha smiled and took one skewer from him, careful not to dribble on a tourist bright shawl draped over her suit. “Orange, really?” he asked.

“The only one more ridiculous was Hello Kitty. No, not yet.” She held the cartoonish map with the hotel logo high as Clint let a boy lift the remainder of their local money from his pocket. “Okay, now.” They slid from the square and another jeep, bits of softer colors showing through scratches and gaps in the black paint, drove away.

“Ready to stroll?” He asked, hefting the bright red backpack over one shoulder. Inside it, the smaller pack shifted. The edge of the market was within sight, the edge of town was two miles, the border of the country was twenty-eight miles, their pickup was forty-three. He held out his hand and she entwined her fingers in his, playing the part of tourist lovers.

\--:::---

Steve followed the sound of Clint’s voice and blinked when he saw him in civilian clothing. “Where are you headed?”

“Beer pong and dart night.” Clint grinned and flipped the collar of his overshirt up and shimmied. The blue parrots danced against the orange background and Steve winced. 

“They let you play?” 

“Sitwell’s found a new place. You coming?”

“No, and neither are you.” He grabbed Clint’s elbow and tugged. “Dimmonds’ update starts in five minutes. We’ll be late.”

“You’ll be late, teacher’s pet. I’ll be absent and on my way to beer.”

“This is more important.”

“Granted, but _I’m_ not. This is Banner and the biochemists’ boyband. I follow the discussion on a good day, but I sure as hell don’t add to it and --”

“And you’re a part of the team, with a track record of spotting discrepancies and patterns where others don’t. That’s a plus, especially given that none of us know what we are dealing with.”

Clint pulled his arm away. “Is that an order, sir?”

“No.”

“Then I’m gone.” Clint spun on his heel.

“It’s a request,” Steve said to his back.

“Sonofabitch.” Clint stopped then, and turned. His face was mulish, and Steve returned his glare. “Don’t you get it, Steve? I’m not needed here.”

“I disagree.”

“I’m not useful here. I don’t have the degrees or the lab coat or the --”

“I still disagree.”

Clint rocked back, his expression shifting from angry to bemused. “You are one stubborn man.”

“You are, unsurprisingly, not the first person to say so. C’mon. Tell you what, I’ll make you a bet. You listen, you pay attention, you contribute something helpful, and I mean helpful by the test tube squad’s standards because I wouldn’t know helpful from a hole in the ground, I’ll do anything you want.”

“What, seriously?”

“Call it a bribe. Anything. Wear a skirt in public, arm-wrestle Big Green …”

“Wear a Yankees jersey to a game?”

“Ugh, really?”

Clint laughed. “Lemme get back to you on that.”

Clint slouched at the back of the conference room, away from the table and against the wall, and spent most of the meeting tipping his chair at a precarious angle and scowling at the window. He’d pulled off the brightly colored button down shirt and thrown it over his chair back at Fury’s glare, but no one had said a word when he’d entered behind Steve and taken a chair. Steve let the information flow over him, names of people and technology he didn’t recognize, and watched the people, the scientists and analysts, estimating interdepartmental relationships by reaction. At one point Clint frowned at the illuminated wall and glanced over to the speaker, then shook his head and let the chair fall onto its feet properly. Steve interrupted the analyst. “What was your question, Agent?”

Clint shot him a glare that would melt steel, but he answered, “The Meentin, in your report, Ronald Meentin? Died London 2010?”

A minion near the door, low in hierarchy, Steve thought, very aware of his own position next to Hill, nodded and Clint said, “And the Velasquez, same guy who was working with Fournier back in 2005?”

This time Dimmonds, head of the project, nodded, and Clint fell silent, his right hand rubbing at his left elbow. Fury leaned forward and tapped the table twice. Everyone looked at him in the sudden silence, but he was staring directly at Clint. “Barton, talk to me,” Fury said.

Steve could see Clint go pale even as half the field agents in the room twitched and stared openly at Fury. Clint shook his head once sharply, swallowed heavily and said, “With Chavez’s ultimatum public, a hell of a lot of people, resources, projects, got moved over borders, one way or the other, in a hurry. Has anyone seen a picture of this Moreno person? What if he’s drawing from Meentin’s research--the private files, the stuff that wasn’t published, the files that disappeared when he died? What if Moreno _is_ Velasquez, rather than a student or rival?”

“That’s not possible,” the woman next to Dimmonds blurted out, but Dimmonds tapped at his tablet.

Fury leaned back as Clint did the same, though Fury smiled and Clint was radiating hostility, his arms crossed and his jaw set. “Dr. Nguyen,” Fury said. “After a few more years working here, I think you’ll find your definition of impossible narrowing. But the Agent’s hypothesis opens some avenues for tracking the man, if not the science. Dr. Dimmonds, if you would continue?”

Steve was watching Clint, so when he saw him raise two fingers, he almost missed Natasha’s answering gesture. Natasha narrowed her eyes across the table at him before turning back to face the room with a general expression of polite interest for the rest of the meeting. He waited for Fury to dismiss the meeting and shake hands, so he had to hurry to catch up with Clint, who was already halfway to the elevators.

“So if I say, ‘Barton, talk to me...’?”

“I’ll punch you in the jaw.” Clint jabbed at the already lit button with one hand, his bright shirt wadded in the other.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Did I lose the bet?”

“Probably. It’s most likely nothing, which is why I don’t--”

Natasha said, from directly behind him, “Why you run your hare-brained ideas through Coulson before speaking up.”

“Ran, past tense. Not run. ”

Natasha grabbed Clint by the back of the neck. Steve could see the flesh there, the muscle at the base of his skull, dimpling under her thumb and his neck twinged in sympathy. She gave him a hard shake and let go. Steve stood behind Clint in silence and watched the skin beneath his short cropped hair shift from white to red by the time Natasha disappeared around a corner.

“I didn’t think it was hare-brained.” Steve said as the doors before them opened near silently and they stepped in.

Clint glanced up, then around the elevator, tapping a button as the doors closed again. “Yeah, neither did she, or she wouldn’t have said anything.”

But she _didn’t_ say anything, Steve thought, then shrugged it away. When the doors opened, Clint took a left to the range, and Steve knew better than to hover, so he headed for the mess. At least coffee would give him an excuse to sit and stare uncomprehendingly at the reports even now pinging at him from his hip.

\--::-- 

Steve carefully hit reply and took all of the names off but Clint’s before deleting everything but the one relevant paragraph near the bottom. He added a line of exclamation points at the top, tossing in a few ones, too, because Tony had gone off on a tear when he’d done it accidentally, double checked that he wasn’t replying to the entire group, because he wasn’t doing that again anytime soon, and hit send. Then he sat with a view of the door to his quarters, carefully propped open, and waited.

“All right, you won.” At some point, Clint had put the parrot shirt back on. The ridiculous birds danced as he pulled it off, leaving him in just his usual black tee. 

”Yep, anything you want.” Steve set his sketchbook to one side.

Clint stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m going to say this and I want you to remember it. You can back out any time, okay?”

Steve set his jaw. “I’m not going to.”

“I’m just saying, you can, any time, no harm, no foul. You need to know that.”

“Clint, I’ve dressed as a woman before.”

For a moment, Clint looked like he was going to sneeze. “No, stop, you can’t just. You _what?_ ”

“I’m not going to back down.”

“Okay, one, wasn’t actually going to do that, and two, you will tell me this story.”

“You know about the USO tour? “

“Oh yeah, you and the prettiest girls of the war bonds effort.”

“Curfew, chaperones, women-only hotels, and uh, some rougher areas than others. They couldn’t sneak out without risking ... anyway. Wig and a lot of foundation, and, um … undergarments.”

“You wore a girdle.”

“Yeah.”

“And here I thought the Yankees jersey was cruel and unusual.”

Steve rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows. Pepper did it a lot. He hoped it helped her more than it seemed to help him. “Clint, what’s the forfeit that’s so over-the-top that you think I’m going to welsh on a bet?”

“Socks in the bra?”

“You’re avoiding the question.” 

“Hell, why leave the hotel at all? I mean you’ve got a couple of dozen girls and they’ve got you, so room service the olive oil and whipped cream and call it a party right there.”

“I don’t even know where to start with that.”

“My suggestion would be on the bottom, but hey, that’s just me.”

“Most of those ladies were married or had guys serving and I was more of a mascot than ...you’re still avoiding the question.”

“No, right now I’m fantasizing. How many girls were on tour with you?”

“Clint,” Steve said and reached out to pull Clint in like he’d seen Natasha do. Clint stiffened, but he didn’t pull away. 

“Yeah, that’s part of it.” Clint paused for long seconds, then sighed and spoke in a rush, “Okay, remember we talked about kink? Consensual, but not … uh.”

Steve blinked. He might be welshing after all.

“Just hear me out. You and me and a little bruising, really nothing worse than sparring. I promise. “

“I’m not sure I’m ready for ...uh ... okay, just between us? The horse thing kind of freaked me out.”

“Tony was messing with you. And with Bruce. I don’t think he expected Pepper to escalate it like that. No breaking, just a little roughhousing. Naked.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. I’ll come up with something else.” Clint’s response was sharp and Steve bit his lip. 

“I didn’t say no, I just. .. “ He put a hand on Clint’s chest. Clint’s face was still, but his heart was racing. “You’re sure?”

“If you can’t do it, fine.” Clint stepped to the left and Steve pulled his wrist up, pivoting on his back foot to shove Clint against the wall, then stepped in to push him off his feet with his other hand. He curled his right hand around Clint’s throat, not pressing, just holding him against the wall, and released his supporting hand, letting Clint’s full weight drag against his jaw, leaving him pinned to the wall, his toes three inches off the floor, one sharp snap from paralysis or death. 

“I didn’t say no,” Steve repeated and Clint blinked, the same blink that he made when Steve pulled his hands over his head, the same blink when he hit the mat and Steve pinned him. Steve let him drag down, still against the wall, but letting him take his own weight, and he curled his hand into a fist in the collar of Clint’s shirt. “Any particular attachment to this shirt?” He asked, pleased with how steady he sounded.

“Unh?” Clint answered, and Steve smiled. He dragged the shirt downward. The collar resisted enough to pull Clint forward involuntarily, then the reinforcement yielded and the rest came away easily, leaving Clint bare from the waist up, and Steve with a handful of cotton. Steve encircled Clint’s wrists with his own fingers and drew them up. “This is the rule,” he said, tugging Clint toward the doorway with the pullup bar that he didn’t actually use. “You let go ...” Steve pulled at the buckle of his belt, sliding it free of the loops to Clint’s apparent fascination. He tossed the buckle of his belt over the bar and pressed one end into each of Clint’s hands, “You let go of this and I stop.” Clint fed the tongue of the belt through the buckle and fastened it quickly. 

Steve smacked the backs of his hands. “No, no twist, no wrapping it.”

Clint shook his head. “Just making a loop. I still have to hold on, see? No cheating.”

“Right, no cheating.” Steve answered, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to. He tugged on it, pretty sure the bar would hold, but not so sure about the belt. He should have used his uniform belt for this, he thought, then paused, appalled at his own brain. 

He ran his palm over the back of Clint’s neck, then tugged sharply at his hair. Clint let him pull his head back and Steve pressed forward for a kiss, deliberately catching Clint’s lower lip against his teeth, biting at his lips and when Clint started panting, trailing hard kisses, just as hard as the bites mixed with them, bites not quite enough to break the skin along his jaw, down his neck, across his chest. 

“You could ... you--”

“No. You get one point of control, here, Barton,” Steve said. “You call an end. Other than that,” he slapped, open hand and cupped, so it made more noise than anything, across the upper part of Clint’s ribcage, carefully aiming above the floating ribs, just in case, and on the far side from the cracked ribs from four weeks ago. The skin reddened almost instantly, and Steve dropped to his knees, feathering soft kisses along where he’d struck. “You’ll take what I give you.” He dragged his chin backwards along the edge of Clint’s waistband, deliberately catching the stubble there, then yanked Clint’s pants down, dragging them still fastened off his hips and did it again, rubbing his chin, shaved hours ago, against the soft skin between Clint’s hipbone and his cock. He glanced up. Clint was still holding onto the belt and murmuring something, a single word, it seemed, into his chest. Steve sucked the head of Clint’s cock into his mouth and, mindful of all the warnings he’d read not to, let it slide over his back teeth as he pulled himself forward. Clint threw his head back and gasped. Oh, that’s what he’d been saying--Fuck. Probably not, no, not like this, Steve thought. Not until he was a lot more comfortable with the whole process, but he ran his fingernail up behind Clint’s balls, dragging the edge harder than he’d dared and Clint kneed him in the face. 

“Shit, sorry, sorry, are you okay?” Cint gasped.

“Did you let go?”

“Do you want to stop?”

“Not what I asked.”

“No, jesus, I’m good. I’m good.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “Are you good?

“Not the point,” Steve said and swatted Clint on the backside, not pulling it much. 

“Ah fuck, yes.” Clint shuffled his feet to regain his balance. He was pulling the belt tight now, letting it support some of his weight as he sagged, his knees slightly bent. 

Steve smacked him again, not quite across his ass this time, but across the tops of his thighs, then again, just below, and once more at an angle across the first. He straightened to standing, first running his fingertips over an area, the lightest of touches, barely enough to move the hair on Clint’s forearm, then delivering a sharp short slap there, then doing it again, lower back, chest, shoulder. He blew across Clint’s neck, where sweat trickled from his hairline, then kissed away the saltsweet perspiration collecting at the corners of Clint’s eyes. Standing behind him, Steve curled his arms around Clint, one hand around his dick, the other roaming his chest and pinching at his nipples. “Is this what you wanted, Clint?” Steve whispered into Clint’s ear and twisting with both hands. He scratched his fingernails along Clint’s hip with one hand and sped up with the other, and when Clint sighed out “more” to the ceiling, pressed his closed lips to Clint’s open, panting mouth and murmured, “Come for me, Clint. Now.” 

Clint curled in on himself, nearly pulling out of Steve’s grasp as he spasmed then dropped the belt, throwing his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling them both to the floor. Steve fought not to laugh as Clint squirmed in his arms, bare to the knees, his pants still around his ankles, still fastened, even.

“Lemme do you, Steve, hold still, I gotta, oh fuck...” Steve rolled them both over and kissed Clint again, this time the way he wanted to, slow and soft, and gradually, Clint slowed down, relaxing under Steve, stroking rather than grabbing, caressing instead of clutching. He wriggled and Steve caught his hands, trapping him again. 

“Nope, bet. Not fair if it’s mutual.” Steve rolled back to his knees, leaving Clint on the floor, and started unlacing Clint’s boots. “Bed,” he said, and pulled one boot off, “and in the morning, we’ll come up with something.” He pulled the other boot off and Clint kicked his pants off. 

Steve dragged Clint off the floor and pulled the sheets down as Clint babbled, “Shit, Steve, I have got to make more bets with you. Next time, I’ll prep and you can hold me down and fuck me. Play darts with me, please. Anything, anything I can win, I’ll bring lube and a blindfold.” 

“Uh-unh, no darts, but I suspect the opportunity for a trade will come up at some point.”

“See, jesus, endorphin rush, even the fucking puns are funny. Hey, where …”

Steve pressed his shoulder back to the bed. “I’m going to clean up and I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, my knees don’t even work right now. Gimme five minutes, and I’m good.” 

Steve left him mumbling into the pillow and closed the door to the bathroom quietly. He dropped his pants and closed his eyes and he grabbed his dick. His briefs were wet and he’d been hard for so long his balls ached and as he stroked, he thought about Clint’s pulse, fluttering under his thumb, and hauling him up, into the air, against the wall and the sharp sting against his palm and his orgasm took him by surprise. He washed his hands and thought about respecting strength and fumbling in the dark while Bucky whispered about what he’d do with a girl and not Steve and the way Clint had pressed kisses blindly against his mouth and he wondered where the lines were. 

He left his clothes in the bathroom and headed to his bed, a little surprised to see it still occupied. He slid in and awkwardly kept his hands at his sides, his shoulders stiff, until Clint reached over, grabbed the arm farther away from him, and dragged it over his chest, pulling Steve up and onto one side, sliding in as though they fit together, as though this was something Steve could have. Steve pressed a kiss to the base of Clint’s skull, the hollow where Natasha had grabbed him earlier that day, and closed his eyes. 

Steve woke, surprised to find Clint wrapped around him, one leg over his hips and morning wood pressing into his thigh. He trailed his fingers across the fragile bones of Clint’s neck. He wasn’t sure if the shading under Clint’s jaw was the dappling effect of dawn or his fingerprints from the night before. 

“Hey, let’s try something. I think we’re going to have to call in Natasha again, though.”

Clint said to his armpit. “Bored with the matching equipment already?”

“No, but we need more equipment and I’m betting she’s got it at hand.”

\--::--

Clint feinted left, then took the stinging slap she delivered with an exaggerated face. “Ow!”

“Settle, you two.” Steve said and Clint wondered if he even knew that he’d slipped into the same timbre and pitch he used in the field. “Communication is important. We need to establish guidelines.”

Natasha snapped back, “No. You aren’t in charge. You’re field command and this isn’t. What we do here in no way affects our combat readiness.”

And with that, Steve was no longer Captain America, but just Steve, sitting on the bed sideways in his boxers and dangling a pair of manacles. “I was actually thinking of … um … establishing safewords.”

Natasha tilted her head, then turned to Clint. “He’s adorable. Do you break for milk and cookies, too?

Clint could feel Steve’s blush from across the room. “Natasha, be nice.”

“I can’t be. He’s got all the nice in the room wrapped up.”

Steve interrupted, “What’s wrong with milk and cookies?”

Natasha tossed him the flogger in her hand. “No food play. I have limits.”

Clint ran through every scenario he’d seen her in, whether he’d been watching her through a camera or a scope or memorably as a bodyguard. “No, you don’t.” He ticked off on his fingers as he said, “I’ve drunk body shots off you myself. Rare roast beef. The tomato incident, oh god, remember the kiwi …”

She tossed a red rubber ball with dangling leather straps underhand to Steve and pointed at Clint. “Gag him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

\--::--

Steve sat with a blindfold in one hand and a leather mask with zippers over the eyeholes in the other and wondered if he could pinpoint, precisely, when he’d gotten over his head. “So the spreader bar actually helps. I think I get it.” He ran his thumb over the tiny metal spikes in a glove, catching them against the pad of his thumb. “How do you know when he’s hurting? Well, not you. You two are telepathic, I’ve learned that already.” Clint and Natasha looked at one another, then at him, and yeah, that’s what he meant by telepathic. “But other people, how would someone else know?”

Natasha patted Clint on the head. “Safeword,” she said.

“Mph mpumnh,” he answered.

“Tap out,” she said and he slapped the floor twice. 

“So he can tap out at any time?”

“No, other people tap out. Clint, boo!” she said and he rolled backward away from them and rocked to his feet, spitting the gag into the hand that suddenly had the cuffs dangling from it. 

Clint grinned as he walked back toward where Steve sat on the bed. “Actually,” he said, “for beginners, red-yellow-green is easy to remember and hard to screw up.” He handed the gag to Natasha and said, “tighter.” She rolled her eyes. For that moment she looked like herself again, despite the terrifying heels and laced leather, that difference between Natasha and the Black Widow flickering like old school animation. She rebuckled the gag more tightly, so that it pressed into his jaw, just enough to leave a mark and Clint closed his eyes and sank to her feet fluidly. 

“Show me,” Steve said, then had to swallow to continue, “show me what you like.”

She watched Steve as she stroked Clint, head to mid back, like a cat and pressed the toe of her boot under his ass. He knelt, legs slightly spread, leaning forward at the waist and his hands clasped, up at shoulder height, parallel to the floor. She pulled a rope from the bag behind her, soft, nylon, and wrapped it, not in a single knot, but several turns, interlacing the rope like the patterns on the hilts of the samurai swords passed around as trophies by guys from the Pacific theater back in the day, crossed and knotted and twined in a pattern that bound Clint’s arms from biceps to wrist as he knelt at her feet. Clint’s eyes were half closed and his mouth was open and his dick strained at the black briefs he wore.

Steve looked up, at Clint’s careful posing, unlike the uncontrolled frantic shudder of the day before. With a shiver of his own, he recognized Natasha’s calm smile, the way she held herself, the flip of her hair. He’d seen it before, on the surveillance tape from the Mavont file. He blinked and said, “Yellow.”

Clint shook his head and rubbed his cheek against his shoulder, then spit the gag out again. “You sure?”

“I’m going to tape that thing to you, ” Natasha said with fond exasperation, but she slid her hand through his hair and the gag fell, unbuckled, to the floor.

“Not having fun,” Steve said and he repeated, “yellow. No, red. Donwanna.”

“Donwanna, donhaveta,” Clint agreed and wriggled, then flapped his bound hands and held them up toward Natasha. 

“No, I mean, you guys can, if you’re enjoying yourselves. You could. I’ll just leave.”

They looked at one another, that silent communication that Steve couldn’t pretend to understand, then Natasha stepped out of her heels and said, “Steve, we’re not pushing you.”

“No, I mean, I asked for this, right? I thought it looked interesting and I wanted to try, and I really appreciate your including me in um, everything, but ... I’m sorry?”

“A little help?” Clint whined.

“Deal with it,” she snapped over her shoulder.

“I’d like to be able to use this shoulder later, thank you.”

Steve waved a hand, “Here, I’ll get you.” He glanced up to face Natasha's cool appraisal, “Unless I’m … I’m in the middle of something, aren’t I? I should go.”

“Usually Clint’s the one running.” She ignored the “Hey!” behind her and straddled Steve’s legs, sitting on his lap and putting her arms around his neck. It should have been thrilling, but as she ruffled his hair, he looked into her eyes and remembered that she was within reach, within range, and she could kill him in five ways, five ways that she’d shown him, so probably another ten as well, and he knew that showing her anger like this was also an act of intimacy, and he sat as still as a rabbit in a hawk’s shadow. 

“I’m sorry?” Steve repeated. “I’m not entirely sure why I’m sorry, but I really really am. I messed up something, but I don’t know what.” She sighed and nothing in her face changed, but everything did and she looked, sad, or maybe disappointed, and he put his hands around her waist and picked her up, carefully, warily and she let him set her on her feet. He scooped up his pants, left his shirt on the floor, and fled. 

-::--

He pulled up short in the kitchen door when he spotted Natasha, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Still mad at me?”

“Wasn’t mad at you in the first place.” She handed him a cookie. He eyed it warily. “Dried cranberries.”

“Heh, raisins shouldn’t be that color.” Okay, good, he could talk about fruit. Or cookies. 

“Any relationship between you and Clint doesn’t come between Clint and me.”

“Um. Oh please don’t tell me you think of him as a brother, because I was there and I don’t have a sister, but I know what having one is supposed to be like and …”

“And you’ve never touched a brother.” 

Steve blinked. There was no way any of that was in any file, ever. 

She shook her head, “But I digress. You need to know that you cannot affect us. Whatever you do. Because what we have isn’t about sex, or love. You give him what I can’t.”

He remembered the way Clint had curled up into her touch. “Not from where I’m standing.”

“Clint still believes in white picket fences.”

He frowned at the cookie again because he didn’t exactly want to frown at her. 

“Love,” she said. “Clint believes in happy endings and happily ever after. So do you.”

She walked out of the kitchen, sipping her tea. He finished the cookie. He wasn’t sure about the cranberries, but it was still a cookie. Different wasn’t better or worse; it was just different . And how the hell had she known about Bucky?

\--::--

“Hey Steve!”

Clint jogged to catch up with him. “You ready to start Phase Two?

“What was Phase One?

“Protected harbour. I think you’ve gone about as far as you can with us. You ready to go scuba-ing outside the reef?”

“Only if you drop the metaphors.”

“You’ve got a date, big guy. Secret clearance, but doesn’t work for SHIELD. She’s a congressional aide, though, so don’t talk too much shop.”

“You’re vetting dates for me?”

“No, I’m setting you up with someone. We’ll be vetting dates for you forever, but recruiting is a limited term service. What, I thought this was what you wanted? Get the nervous first time out of the way with us, then go venturing out into the world. You’ve mastered condom usage. Trust me, you are ready for this, I promise.”

“Right, you’re right, of course.” Steve nodded, game face on. Even the super spy wasn’t infallible. The thought didn’t give him much comfort.

Clint was watching him, with some concern. “Steve? You good?”

“Yeah, good, just out of context. We’ve been talking about eco-terrorists all day, and now you’re bringing up dating.” He opened the door to the conference room and gestured Clint in before him. 

“Pretty sure she’s not an eco-terrorist, so keep up. Okay, Thursday, 8 pm. You know the Italian place with the manicotti? There. So you know, even if the date’s a wash, mmmm manicotti.” Clint hummed, and Steve grinned. Yeah, he knew the place. Clint was still talking as he took the seat next to Natasha. “Make somebody clear your wardrobe choices. I’ve been informed that my clothing decisions are not appropriate to anyone who isn’t me.”

Natasha said with a sneer, “Your idea of date night clothing is whatever can be removed easily.”

Clint grinned. “Your point?”

Tony looked up from the widget in his hands. “Steve’s got a date? Who is she? Have we run a background check on her yet?” At twin looks from Clint and Natasha, he waved one hand. “Right, right, of course. Carry on, then.” 

\--::-

Steve was on his fourth try at sketching the skyline when the floor of the rooftop patio clacked at him. He had a flowerpot in one hand and was considering whether breaking the glass wall behind him or dropping to crash through the window below him would bring backup faster when JARVIS behind, under, around him, said, “Master Stark is returning. The machinery is weather resistant, but not impact-proof. Sir.”

“And potting soil won’t do the gears any good, I bet.” Steve said as he put the pot back down. He toed the small pile of mulch and sighed. A bright spot in the sky became a dark spot became Iron Man, slowing to drop to the end of the roof and walk slowly forward. Seve gaped as the whole edge of the roof came to life and unfolded the suit from around Tony, peeling him free. Tony called when his face was uncovered, “I have a Welcome Cap! Like a night cap, but without booze. Or a welcome mat, but not dirty, oh wait, dirt. Okay, good for you, anticipating my needs. Hi, Steve.”

“That is simply amazing.”

“Why yes, yes I am.” Tony slid his yellow sunglasses onto his face with a smile. 

“I mean, hello, Tony, nice to see you. I’m invading your personal quarters because you said it was okay and, uh, the light’s different. Or the air, something.” Steve waved the sketchbook and Tony waved one hand in negligent disinterest.

“Whatever, Capricorn. Change of scenery, blah blah. So are we drawing Agent Hill like a pinup girl?” Tony made a half-hearted attempt to grab the sketchbook. Steve clutched it tight. 

“What? No!”

“Fury, then? You’re a braver man than I am.”

“I do not draw pinups.”

Tony dropped his chin to stare at Steve over his ridiculous glasses. “Bifrost meeting. Two days ago. After lunch. Foster’s assistant. “

Steve clutched the sketchbook to his chest. “How did you know that?”

Tony just laughed. “Okay, so if you aren’t drawing buxom young ladies, and may I simply say I’m very disappointed that you aren’t, but that’s just me, what brings you to the best view in the city?” 

“The view.”

“Yes.”

“The view brings me to the best … to up here. I needed a little distance.”

“One of those days, eh?” Tony said, and Steve thought that his ears might pop from the atmosphere change. 

Yeah,” he said and hugged his sketchbook. “I think I’ve lied to someone.”

Tony tilted his head. “You think? How drunk were you?”

“Not drunk. I didn’t think it was a lie, but now I’m pretty sure that it was and even if it wasn’t then, it is now and …” he glanced up. Tony seemed to be in actual pain.

They stood in silence for a moment before Tony hopped on one foot, and said “This is a chickflick kind of conversation, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I am so sorry.” Steve dropped his face to his hands.

“Hey, no, friends, we’re friends now, right? Friends do this. I know this because I have friends and you don’t want to know what I’ve put Rhodey through, so I’ve got this, I do. And hey, I’m the Edison of apologies, I’ve found a whole lot of ways to do it wrong, and yeah, no I’m the failed Edison, because I still don’t know how to do it right. Can I send you to Pepper? And if she teaches you the trick of it, will you show me? Unless the person in question was Pepper, in which case I think I need to throw you off the building, so if you’d help out by standing really near the edge, yeah, that’d be great.”

Steve laughed and Tony cocked his head with a grin. 

“No, I won’t, and thanks for the view and the … everything else.”

“Hey, I give great everything else. Who’s in-house?” 

“Bruce, me, now you. Does JARVIS count? “

“Always but we don’t need to order for him. JARVIS, patch me through to Bruce’s lab. Brucie baby! Bachelor night! Brews and burgers! You want those sweet potato things?”

\--::--

The kraken rose out of the bay, waving one be-suckered tentacle at the Williamsburg Bridge and humping its body inward against the outgoing tide.

“Tentacles?” Tony said, the voice system in the armor not completely stripping the screech in his tone. “No, no no. I saw this movie. I’m not doing this without lube.”

“Let’s see how fast it moves. Go!” Steve said and at Captain America’s sweeping arm, Iron Man shot past the dock and over the water, singing nyah nyah nyah tunelessly. The thing swung a desultory arm at him and he hovered, just out of a reasonable range. It waved again and he changed position to hover about twenty feet higher.

Steve pulled Natasha out of the remains of the aircraft, his feet sliding on the mix of mud and rock and concrete that had been pushed up over the banks when the creature had appeared. She shoved him away and threw up again. “I’m fine, “ she said as she waved him off. “Hawkeye fell. Iron Man, where’s Hawkeye?”

“Transponder puts him ... Oh for god’s sake. ‘Distance,‘ Cap said. ‘Keep your distance.’ How is _standing_ on the thing _distance_?” The whine of concussive blast echoed as Steve could hear the muted sound over the earpiece they all wore and then, a fraction of a second later as he swooped within tentacle reach to strike away the flailing arms from the center mass of the thing. Steve could see Hawkeye but not his arrows as he shot barb after barb into the writhing mass below him. 

The almost electronic screech sounded again and Iron Man bobbed in air, but the monster cephalopod rippled, contracting violently in a wash of water and floating tourist detritus. Hawkeye dove, a flattened arc, his arms and back like a javelin, away from the thing, but before he hit the yellow-gray froth the kraken knocked him sideways, throwing him into the middle of the East River and away from the bank. Steve jumped in to meet it, the blue streaks of the Widow’s bite flaring past him as he deliberately hyperventilated, then dove only to find the water was too churned up. His visibility was damn near nil and he could feel the thing before he saw it, evading a snap of a bird-like beak and jamming his shield into it before he could see the gashes across the rubbery skin, the multiple shafts sprouting like a tuft of weeds from its eyes. Iron Man’s voice sounded in his ear. “Found the frequency; Octozilla goes dead … now.” 

Steve yanked his shield free and kicked off the limp body to break the surface of the water faster. “Hawkeye’s signal, Iron Man, where is it?”

"He’s twenty feet behind you. His earpiece is apparently caught on something and floating into the Atlantic. Don’t worry, I’ll get it later. Hands up!” Steve threw his free hand into the air, bracing himself for the yank as Iron Man grabbed his wrist and hauled him into the air. Hawkeye, similarly dangling from one arm, his bow in the other, slammed into his side, then grinned and whooped. Iron Man released them at the edge of the circle of first responders and Steve dropped to the ground, bending his knees at the impact. Hawkeye, beside him, rolled, then jumped to standing and swept into an elaborate bow, his arms wide and his legs crossed, then straightened to wave as the police around them either ignored them or laughed. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Amazing Hawkeye,” Tony said as he settled to the ground. 

“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,” Clint answered as he blew kisses with both hands.

“Medical, now.” Steve pointed at the waiting ambulance. Clint blew another kiss and Steve grabbed the back of his uniform and hauled him up off the ground and started walking .

Clint didn’t even kick or struggle and just continued waving, but as Steve brought him nearer, he whispered, “You’re counteracting the effects of the cold water. If my cup trends on Twitter tomorrow, I’m blaming you.” Steve dropped him and Clint jogged beside him the rest of the way.

Natasha was sitting in the open doors, shaking bits of debris from her wet hair. “I’m preemptively vetoing sushi night. Any objections?”

Tony slid his mask up. “God, no, I’m off calamari for a while after that.”

\--::--

Clint dragged on jeans before opening the door. Bruce was weird about nudity, probably because he found himself publicly nude periodically, and everyone else was probably still trying to get the East River out of their ears. He left the towel over his shoulders, though, and ran his fingers through his hair to keep it from drying too flat. “Tell me you’ve got the Thai place on … oh, hey Steve.” He’d forgotten to ask how the date had gone. He wasn’t avoiding the issue, just ... not bringing it up.

Steve stepped entirely into the room instead of lounging in the doorway like he usually did. “You free?” 

“Free of suckers, yes. Also free of body hair.” Clint turned to show his back. “Also bits of skin in a fetching polka dot pattern. Check this out.” Steve put one hand on his back and the other on his shoulder as though to check him, but Clint could feel the cotton of his tee-shirt, because he was standing too near. Clint pivoted to face him without seeming to retreat. “Hey, are you okay?”

Steve dropped his hands to his sides, but stood so close that when he spoke, Clint could feel his breath brush across his temple. “You and Natasha were underwater for a long time.”

Clint shrugged and took a step back at that, trying to guess at what a friendly distance would be. “It was relatively clean water, minus the squid chunks. Bouillabaisse, even.” He looked up to try to catch Steve’s eyes. “Steve, I’m fine. We’re all fine. We won.”

“I worry.”

Clint backed up far enough to pop Steve with the towel. “S’why we love you, big guy.” He flipped the end of the towel over his shoulder. 

Steve caught the end. “Yeah, you want some company? Or, uh, do you mind some company?”

“I think Nat’s got a date.” With a loofah and an entire bottle of the sparkle glitter bubble crap she bought once a year. 

“I was thinking just us.” Steve hooked a finger in Clint’s belt loops but wouldn’t meet his eyes and Clint was beginning to get a little weirded out by it. Then Steve breathed in again, pulling air across Clint’s scalp, and he got it. 

It wasn’t always the close fights that got under your skin. He had nightmares about the Helicarrier, still, always would, just as sometimes in his dreams he was three foot and hiding in the closet behind the rubber snow shoes his father never wore and keeping as quiet as he could, but sometimes, too, instead of slowly strangling Natasha as Loki smiled behind him, he was taking the shot he should have, the one he was ordered to, 300 yards in Krakow. And sometimes it was the dumb stuff that got him, the way the car had tipped in Lisbon, the bruises from the seat belt and cuts from the airbag more infuriating than the nearly identical ones from the fight an hour before or walking by the pretentious junk shop that Coulson had loved. “It’s okay, Steve. It’s okay.” He reached up and curled his palm over Steve’s shoulder, pressing lightly to show Steve how tightly he was holding himself. “Tony wasn’t scratched, Natasha’s going to sterilize her gut with sriracha tonight and you’re breathing. We’re fine.”

Steve closed his eyes. “I know. I know. You’re good.”

Clint poked him hard in the chest and took the easy route to cheering him up. He’d deal with the fallout in the morning. “Damn right I’m good. Lock the door and I’ll remind you just how good I am.”

Steve kicked the end table to block the door and Clint grinned. “Okay, yeah, that works too, whoa!”

Steve grabbed him just a little too hard, wasn’t quite careful as he shoved Clint onto the sofa near the door and fumbled at the button of Clint’s jeans. Clint fell and let him go with it, letting Steve pull him where he apparently wanted him, half laying across the seat of the couch, Steve between his legs, sucking hickeys on his thighs to match the ones on his arms from the fucking monster in the bay. 

Steve mouthed the tip of Clint’s dick, then swallowed, faster and deeper than he probably should have, given he coughed and pulled off. Clint tried to shift, to pull Steve up for a kiss, to slow him down a little, but Steve grabbed Clint’s ass and did it again, too far for Steve’s comfort, god, but from Clint’s side, incredible, not romantic but so fucking good. Steve’s eyes were watering when Clint tapped him on the shoulder, but Steve shook his head and buried his nose in Clint’s pubic hair, pushing Clint even deeper. He tugged twice on Steve’s hair, then gave up and gave in to the desperate heat and curled over him, patting, stroking as he came. Steve pushed up toward him for a kiss, greedy, insistent. Clint couldn’t catch his breath and his dick was getting cold, hanging out of his fly, but Steve’s hands were heavy on his face, and he yielded to Steve’s strength like any other overwhelming force, gravity or riding the swell of the surf.

Steve dropped to bury his nose in Clint’s ribs, throwing one arm around Clint’s waist and jacking himself with the other, fast and hard. Clint rested one hand on Steve’s neck and grabbed onto the swell of Steve’s still arm with the other. When he came, Steve clutched him close, pulling him in, holding him still, murmuring, “You’re good, we’re good, all good.” Clint patted at his hair in answer, missing after the first few when Steve shifted, holding Clint’s wrist. “Did I do that?”

“What? No, man, that was Davy Jones’ evil pet this afternoon.”

Steve leaned in, slow and heavy, and sucked hard above the discolored spot, on the meat of his arm, right where the edge of his guard would ride over it. Clint ground up against him and he heard himself curse. “That one is mine, then,” Steve said and licked it. 

Anything. The word sat on his tongue, a hundred proclamations, a thousand endearments. Clint closed his eyes and bit them all back. He took a breath, only a little shaky at the end, and went with the only thing that would keep him from blurting out words like _love_ , or _mine_ , or _yours_. 

“So how’d the thing with Helen go?”

Steve straightened to sit back on his heels. “Your pants aren’t even zipped, Clint. Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Shit. I’m trying to give you what you want.” Clint swept Steve with one leg, pushing himself off the couch and reaching down to drag his jeans back up over his ass as he stood. 

Steve launched himself from the floor, grabbing both Clint’s wrists and holding them above his head, taking advantage of his height to pull Clint tight, his back arched. “I want you.”

“Oh well, hey if you’re going to put it like that.” Clint put all the nonchalance he could drawl into the sentence. He wasn’t sure how well he sold it.

“No more dates.”

“Okay.” His toes barely brushed the floor and Steve had his thigh pressed up and god he could ride this all day and come back for more. Steve’s fingers were hard around his wrists, just pressing the fine bones together without grinding them, holding him still, keeping him close. 

“No more you on the other side of the room. You want to be bound, I'll hold you down myself.” Steve growled and Clint drew in a sharp breath. No way was he getting stiff again, except he was. “You want something in your mouth, I’ll give you something.“ Steve ground his hips and Clint gasped, the rough fabric scraping over his dick just on the good side of painful. 

“I’m serious,” Steve said, and slowly brought their joined hands down. “I want you.”

And that was it. He was done for. He raised his mouth to Steve’s and sealed it with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to theleaveswant for beta


End file.
